WHYTE'S in association with CHRISTIE'S - The Ernie O'Malley Collection MONDAY 25 November 2019

8 Ernie O’Malley was certainly interested in the arts by the age of 21. Soon after he went on the run in 1918, he started buying books on art. In his memoir of the War of Independence, On Another Man’s Wound, i he writes of discussions on art with the erudite Count George Noble Plunkett, then head of the National Museum of Ireland. 1 The art books Ernie purchased (now in the Jackie Clarke Collection in Ballina) were primarily the small, highly portable Gowan biographies of leading Renaissance artists, from Raphael to Hals and Van Dyck. Albrecht Dürer was a favorite. Ernie had been a medical student and Dürer’s fascination with the technical, almost medical, detail of the human form resonated with him. Notwithstanding the period of turmoil in Ireland, Ernie would meet people in the literary and artistic world of Dublin, including Estella Solomons, Thomas MacGreevy, Lennox Robinson and Seán MacBride. He mentioned taking advantage of the late evening viewings at the National Gallery of Ireland where ‘there were a few good pictures to be looked at’ 2 and went there ‘for quiet, for peace,’ even during the Dáil debate on the Treaty in 1921. 3 One of the limited benefits of Ernie’s twenty-month incarceration in Free State prisons during the Civil War was that he had plenty of time to read, albeit sometimes he could barely lift the book. He knew a lot about art even then: I tried to trace the development of Italian painting. Into drifting thought moved images like the slow shuffling of a card pack with an emphasis on some, as when the unskilled dealer fumbled: Giotto, Masaccio, Andrea del Castagno, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, for I had known them for a longer time. Masaccio and della Francesca were my favourites. They had a classic formalism, a ceremonial grace which enhanced their figures, to stress, whatever their subject, the human dignity andmystery of man. I could almost reconstruct the colouring of some and the form of a few, but line I could remember best, the scientific and experimental line of the Florentines, but Holbein would intrude, with Cezanne and the glowing flame of Van Gogh, or the vigorous direct touch of Albrecht Dürer. The imaginative, visionary line ofWilliam Blake flowed in and out in sinuous grace. Had I not carried a volume of Blake, Dürer and della Francesca around withme during the hard years. I had studied them in many a strange background of mountain or bog, and my mixed portfolio of reproductions, cut to fit my pockets, had become frayed and crinkled, worn glossy surfaces stuck with rain and sweat. I had met few people in my wanderings who were interested in painting, and I expect through dearth of discussion I was a jumble of unrelated facts based on emotional values. 4 In his broad reading he indulged in literature, history and the arts. He corresponded with Estella Solomons, Mollie Childers and Mabel Fitzgerald asking them to send him books and reviews on the arts, and sought their advice. Ernie travelled abroad in 1925-26 to recover his health. He found great inspiration in his visits to churches and museum in Spain, France, and Italy. He wrote in detail in his diary and his letters about his reaction to the art he saw, even challenging the decision of local curators as to their artist attributions. Whether on the battlefield or in a museum, Ernie educated himself on the subject at hand and thus was ready to use his knowledge when he needed it. Ernie had a pack-rat archival mentality and kept almost everything he ever wrote. He collected brochures and programmes and retained all the guides to the museums he visited. He quickly became interested in Modern painting, Ernie O’Malley and the Arts By his son, Cormac K. H. O’Malley Portrait of Ernie O’Malley by Marion Greenwood.